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OpenAI is quietly laying the foundations for what could become one of the most significant shifts in the digital economy since the rise of social media: advertising inside ChatGPT.

The company, which has long positioned itself as the antidote to ad-saturated search engines and data-hungry tech giants, is now moving decisively toward building its own advertising infrastructure. Job listings, leadership hires and recent public comments all point in one direction: ChatGPT is preparing to (finally) monetise its vast and growing audience and the consequences for the wider online ad landscape could be profound.

A slow pivot toward monetisation

The first signs of change have come not through grand announcements, but through vacancies. OpenAI has been recruiting engineers to build “paid marketing systems”, complete with campaign dashboards, attribution tools and integrations familiar to anyone who has ever run a Google or Meta ad campaign.

At the same time, the company is reshaping its leadership team. The addition of executives with deep advertising experience, including high-profile former social media figures – is an unmistakable signal that OpenAI is no longer ruling out the ad business. The search for an “ads chief” is the clearest sign yet that the groundwork is now officially under way.

Even Sam Altman, long wary of the corrosive effects of ads on digital trust, has softened his stance. He now speaks less in absolutes and more in caveats: if ads come to ChatGPT, they must be “useful”, “trustworthy” and integrated in a way that does not undermine the user experience. How this can work in competitive ad market remains to be seen. The door however, long held shut, is now slightly ajar.

Why OpenAI wants ads – and why it matters

The shift is hardly surprising. Running AI at scale is ruinously expensive, and subscription revenue alone cannot justify the continuing expansion of models that cost millions to train and millions more to run.

Advertising, by contrast, is a familiar lifeline for tech companies, predictable, high margin and endlessly expandable.

But ChatGPT is not a search engine, social network or news feed. It is an assistant. A companion. A tool people consult in moments of curiosity, research, confusion or even vulnerability. If ads enter that space, the stakes are considerably higher than a sponsored link at the top of a Google results page.

A new frontier: conversational advertising

If OpenAI succeeds, the industry could be on the cusp of a new form of commercial communication: the conversational ad.

Instead of display banners, users might begin seeing “suggested products” woven into responses, or sponsored recommendations delivered as part of an otherwise neutral answer. Advertisers would gain access to an environment far more intimate, and arguably more influentia, than social media feeds.

With ChatGPT already experimenting with shopping tools and in-app purchasing, it is not hard to imagine a future where buying a product becomes as simple as asking a question.

What advertisers stand to gain (and users stand to lose)

For marketers, this new terrain is promising:

• The ability to target people based on context rather than clicks.
• A frictionless path from recommendation to purchase.
• A new channel that blends search intent with conversational trust.

But the risks are considerable.
If ChatGPT is to retain its credibility, it must avoid becoming a machine that nudges users toward whichever brand pays the highest bid. The introduction of advertising into an assistant that people increasingly rely on for guidance, health questions, financial decisions and emotional support raises urgent ethical questions.

Will sponsored messages be clearly flagged?
Will targeting rely on personal data from private conversations?
And will users even be able to tell where advice ends and advertising begins?

These are questions that regulators, privacy advocates and users are likely to pursue vigorously as OpenAI moves closer to launching its ad platform.

The bigger picture: a reshaped digital economy

Should OpenAI proceed, and all signs suggest it will, the impact on the tech industry could be sweeping.

Search traffic could continue to decline as users bypass Google entirely in favour of conversational look-ups. Affiliate marketing may shift into the chat interface. Brands may have to learn the art of “AI-native messaging,” optimised not for algorithms but for dialogue. And publishers, including those already battling the dominance of search and social platforms, may find yet another gatekeeper standing between them and their audiences.

A new era, cautiously approached

For now, ChatGPT’s advertising future remains speculative, though increasingly inevitable. What ultimately emerges may be more subtle than banners and pre-rolls, but potentially more powerful, too.

The next few years will determine whether AI assistants become yet another battleground for targeted advertising, or whether OpenAI can forge a rare exception: an ad-supported platform that does not compromise its users’ trust.

Either way, the era of ad-free AI appears to be drawing to a close. And the digital landscape, from search habits to shopping behaviour and the business models of the internet itself, may be about to change with it.